Please work with me

The PDGA Board recently amended the Bylaws to remove the right of the membership to elect all of the Board members, and instead allowing it (the Board) to appoint some of its own members.

I need volunteers who would be willing to circulate petitions among local PDGA members. The petition requests that the membership be allowed to vote on the amendment.

The membership should be consulted because:1) The administration made no effective case that the amendment is necessary, and there are very good reasons to believe that it is ill-founded. You can review this discussion on the "Picking and Packing the Board" thread on the "Other PDGA Topics" Forum of the PDGA Discussion Board.2) The Board should not remove such important and fundamental membership rights without the full "advice and consent" of the membership.3) The Board acted with deliberate haste and stealth in forcing the amendment. It was all over in five days, and few PDGA members were even aware that it was being done.4) If the Board can get away with this, they could easily remove other important membership rights. Next year, for example, they could vote to appoint all Board members.

At this point a petition is our only recourse. We need about 2000 signatures. If I could get about 100 volunteers from different parts of the country, each one would need only 20-30 signatures. If you would be willing to do this, please contact me (shive@uwyo.edu).

You could put it that way. However, I am calling off the petition drive. I have just realized that it is pointless. The Board can now easily block any member-driven initiative. This is mainly because it takes months to complete a petition drive, but the Board can amend the Bylaws in five days.

Regardless of who wins the at-large Board positions this summer, next year's Board will still be controlled by the holdovers plus their appointees. Even if a petition drive led to the defeat of the "appointment" amendment, the Board could reinstate the amendment in five days. They could even amend the Bylaws to remove the right to petition.

I thank those who have volunteered to circulate petitions. I can't ask anybody to expend that kind of effort when the result could be so easily circumvented.

I know you could, and with other volunteers I know that we could easily get the 2000 signatures to put the "appointment" amendment to a vote. The problem is that it would not do any good. We'd have done all that work for nothing. Even if the membership voted to restore the old Bylaws, the Board could easily nullify the initiative.

And they surely would. They have already shown that 1) they are determined to appoint Board members, and 2) they are determined that the membership not have any say in the matter.

Members voted in the current bylaws which provides the Board with the authority to add appointed members. Members vote for the seven elected Board members. Future elected Board members will presumably be responsible for appointing Board members in line with the elected Board members who reflect the wishes of members. And appointed members can be replaced as needed.

So where are the members not being heard in terms of voting for a significant majority of Board members answerable to the members? They have been hiring staff along with approving budgets for consultants for years. Now there are two outside appointments who aren't actually responsible for doing any specific tasks for the org. The downside is? The members are now excluded in a new way how?

I never joined because it seemed pointless. I was never going to play as a pro or play enough Am tourneys to amass any points. So it was a waste of money to me. Now if you want to play as an AM in most tourneys there is a penalty fee for all non PDGA members so I won't be playing in any tournaments.

When ever a controlling interest takes over any enterprise and limits the membership on how the group is run it usually means that there is some major changes that some want to make and need to stack the controlling interests in their favor.

It seems that the PDGA is going to make some changes that a lot of members are not going to like....